Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Barnard College, the highly selective liberal arts educational institution for women in New York City, received a five-year, $998,289 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how the brain’s connections for sleep/wake cycles differ in males and females. Researchers will study the circadian clock neuron network in Drosophila and the unparalleled genetic tools available in this model system to conduct experiments involving neurogenetics, physiology, connectomics analysis, and behavior, aimed at exploring how the neuronal circuit underlying sleep/wake cycles may have gender differences. The research is under the direction of MariÌa P. FernaÌndez, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the college.
St. Catherine University, the women-centered educational institution in St. Paul, Minnesota, received a three-year, $497,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an interdisciplinary, intersectional curriculum that would promote anti-racism. This project – called Democratizing the Humanities – will hold humanities seminars that will bring students together with community partners to investigate the racial histories of key humanities fields and fashion interdisciplinary projects that counter racism in humanistic scholarship and in institutional and local communities.
Ursuline College, a women’s college in Pepper Pike, Ohio, received a $500,000 donation from trustee Jeanne Colleran and her husband, Richard M. Weaver to support the college’s new physician assistant program. A portion of the gift will be used to create a state-of-the-art classroom and simulation laboratory to accommodate the 60 physician assistant students while also supporting the needs of the college’s growing repertoire of healthcare degree offerings. This coming fall Ursuline launches new programs in respiratory care and nutrition.